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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Embattled World Cup host Qatar sends mixed messages

Embattled World Cup host Qatar is sending contradictory
messages as it struggles with demands to improve migrant labour conditions and mounting
questions about the integrity of its successful FIFA bid, confronts the
fall-out of dropping energy prices, and seeks to project itself as both a key
Western ally and a useful conduit to more militant Islamist forces.

In an uncharacteristic gesture of openness and transparency aimed
at both influencing Qatari public opinion and projecting sincerity globally,
the mother of Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Sheikha Moza
bint Nasser, recently opened Bin Jelmood House, a museum that charts slavery
throughout history.

The museum, against the backdrop of denunciations by
international labour and human rights groups of Qatar’s kafala or labour sponsorship
system that puts employees at the mercy of their employers, situates the Gulf
state’s labour regime in the context of forced labour. “Many construction workers in rapidly
industrializing parts of the world, especially the Gulf region, are considered
to be contractually enslaved,” says one of the museum’s explanatory texts in a
section dedicated to modern slavery.

The positioning of Qatari labour conditions as enslavement
takes on added significance given that foreigners account for 88 percent of the
Qatari population and 94 percent of its labour force. It also takes on
widespread Qatari opposition to fundamental reform, if not abolishment, of the
kafala system driven by a fear that any granting of rights to non-Qataris will
ultimately lead to Qataris losing control of their society, culture and state.

Qatari attitudes towards the World Cup and resulting
pressure for labour reform are largely coloured by fear, irritation with
widespread hostility towards the Gulf state, and attitudes towards
globalization that bring with it greater external influences and a need for
societal and cultural openness.

If the creation of the museum was intended to spark domestic
debate that ultimately could give Sheikh Tamim greater flexibility to reform or
end the kafala system and send a message of intent to foreign critics, Qatar’s
responses to international criticism have projected a very different image.

Qatar last month adopted a new law that was seen by human
rights and labour activists as putting a friendly face on an onerous system rather
than radically reforming a legal framework that they have dubbed modern
slavery.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO), in response to
the law, is considering launching an inquiry into abuse of migrant workers in
Qatar. Adding insult to injury, Qatar’s main rival in the Gulf, the United Arab
Emirates, has adopted the very reforms of its kafala system that Qatar has
promised since winning the World Cup bid five years ago.

All of this is not to say that Qatar is a lost case, but
illustrative of the multiple pressures the Gulf state is balancing and has done
so poorly. The awarding of the World Cup and the associated criticism of Qatar
has however not been wholly without effect even if the Gulf state’s responses
are often too little, too late.

Conditions for workers on World Cup-related projects rather
than broader infrastructure projects that were planned independent of the
tournament have improved dramatically as a result of workers’ standards adopted
by several Qatari institutions, including the 2022 Supreme Committee for
Delivery & Legacy. The problem is that those standards have yet to be
incorporated in legally binding national law.

The government moreover seems keen to improve material
conditions of workers without tinkering fundamentally with onerous aspects of
kafala involving restrictions on freedom of movement and travel and the right
to change employment. In a bid to demonstrate sincerity, Qatar earlier this
month opened the first phase of a city for 70,000 workers, the first of seven
such facilities, that constitutes a significant improvement on current living
and working conditions.

Qatari susceptibility to pressure was nonetheless recently
highlighted by Qatar Airway’s cave-in to demands by the ILO and trade unions that
it remove from its contracts bans on getting married and becoming pregnant. Bloomberg
reported that the company has also endorsed discussions about the lifting of night-time
curfews and restrictions on public conduct.

The timing of debate in Qatar about far-reaching labour
reform could not be worse. It comes as the country’s social contract in which
citizens are offered a cradle-to-grave welfare state buffeted by an absence of
income and sales taxes and generous subsidies for energy, utilities and food in
exchange for acceptance of absolute rule is being called into question. Driving
the fraying of the social contract are lower global energy prices and the need
to rationalize and diversify the country’s economy.

Sheikh Tamim warned early this month that the state could no
longer “provide for everything.” He bemoaned the fact that subsidies and
benefits had reduced the “motivation of individuals to take initiatives and be
progressive.” Anticipating Qatar’s first budget deficit in 15 years, Sheikh
Tamim stressed that the government’s new budget would aim to root out
corruption, eliminate wasteful spending, and streamline the country’s bloated bureaucracy.

A senior development and planning official, Saleh bin
Mohammed Al Nabit, said it was “urgent” for Qatar to gain new sources of
revenue through taxation and rationalization of subsidies and government
support programs.

Qatar’s inability to counter mounting international
criticism and questions about the integrity of its World Cup bid also casts a
shadow over Sheikh Tamim’s willingness or ability to radically reform labour
laws. Already facing a Swiss legal inquiry into its bid and potential
questioning by the US Department of Justice, Qatar, in the latest twist has been
linked to alleged bribery in Germany’s successful bid for the 2006 World Cup.

Critics charge that rather than being transparent about its
bid, Qatar is seeking to dominate, if not hijack the debate about integrity of
sport through its largely state-funded International Center for Sport Security
(ICSS). ICSS’s credibility has been called into question by its refusal to
investigate or comment on the Qatari bid and the way some of its senior
executives were hired.

Qatar furthermore did itself no favours by recently hosting
and giving a platform to a Saudi imam, Aidh Abdullah al-Qarni, who glorified
Palestinian attacks on Israelis. Critics have accused Qatar of maintaining ties
to militants Islamists and jihadists even if those relationships have at times
benefitted Western nations and offer a needed back channel.

Qatar’s public association with militant Islamists amounts
to one more nail in a coffin at a time that the country’s credibility is in
question on multiple fronts, economics is forcing it to rethink one of the
pillars on which the Al Thani regime is built, and widespread international
criticism puts many Qataris on the defensive.

Qatar bets on the fact that its natural resource wealth will
secure its position in the world. That could prove to be a risky proposition
without Qatar doing more than simply signalling intent through gestures like
the slavery museum.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of
Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same
title.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile